A NEW CONCEPT COMPOSITE HEAT-EXCHANGER TO BE APPLIED IN HIGH-TEMPERATURE INDUSTRIAL-PROCESSES

A novel type of high temperature hear exchanger (HTHE) is presented wh ere the main heat transfer parts are made out of CMC (ceramic mat::ix composite) materials; such HTHE is applicable to different industrial processes, ranging from chemical, to glass, to metallurgical and to wa ste incineration. Common features are gas-gas HTHE, chemically aggress ive environments. and high fouling, generally on the shell side. The a rrangement is modular, and the single module is based on seven bayonet tubes; a pseudo-cross-flow configuration is reached by means of ceram ic baffles on the shell side. Design of the module is focused on the m ost severe thermodynamic conditions, among:he aforesaid applications. Thermal and mechanical designs are presented. which have been performe d by means of both commercial finite elements and developed ad hoc cod es: these models have been validated through an experimental programme , the derails of which are given here. The modularity of the design al lows a reasonable scaling up, provided that some key technological bar riers are overcome, such as availability of higher performance CMC mat erials, tube to tubesheet ceramic joints, heat transfer augmenting dev ices. (C) European Communities 1997. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd .